Blooming Hunter Wellies

Realizing that I needed to keep up with my kids through mud and rain puddles, I decided to buy the trendy Hunter Wellingtons that Angelina Jolie wore in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. That was a year ago. Here is a picture from a Canadian store that sells them:



The picture is not accurate, however. They are not semi-shiny and all black. Even brand new wellies out of the box look somewhat chalky.

My black wellies developed a whitish cast to them, referred to as "blooming" in various Hunter information sources. This is a natural process of the rubber that occurs over time. Scrubbing with soap and water will not remove the marks.

I found an excellent source for possible solutions in a purse forum!

I will summarize so you don't have to read the whole thread. The possible solutions are: olive oil, Armorall, and McNett UV Tech. The only solution that I would consider, given the reports on the permanency of the various methods, was the McNett UV Tech. I also like the fact that it is non-toxic and biodegradable.

McNett UV Tech is available from REI in the U.S. and at Mountain Equipment Coop in Canada.

Another blogger has posted the results of her cleaning.

Now, this all got me thinking about my triathlon wetsuit. It's overdue for a repair of two moon shaped cuts. Despite all the warnings, I still managed to cut up my wetsuit with my fingernails. McNett also makes Aquaseal, which can be used to make such repairs. I'll have to conquer that problem another day.

Read an update on whether it was worth it to buy these boots here.

Buying a New Computer

On December 3, my IBM ThinkPad finally died, probably from a virus, even though I never really took her out of the house. As luck would have it, just before she died, I made copies of important files and stored them on an external hard drive. I received a message that she could not start Windows because the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM file was suddenly missing or corrupt. ¥£$&#@!!!

The picture of the old girl in her dying days shows a broken hinge. The hinge broke due to an unfortunate meeting of the laptop with the floor while the laptop was accelerating toward the floor. The special enhanced laptop lettering is handcrafted with white paint. On November 26, the display was wavering and could only be fixed by unplugging the adapter cord or by pushing down on the top left corner of the laptop. Seriously.

I was a militant Apple girl from 1984 to 1992, when I finally gave into the dark side and bought my first "IBM" computer. And now that my ThinkPad finally died, I had the chance to be re-born as an Apple girl again.

Alas... after researching prices, I realized that I would not be returning to my first love. The very cheapest Mac would ring in at $1200 CAD. I reluctantly decided to go with a non-Mac, as it would be about 50% less. I only need the computer for surfing, some word processing, and some online TV watching.

With such limited needs, I figured I should be looking at netbooks, until I read this. The article claims a high return rate for some netbooks. I decided to go for a full size computer.

The choice of computers today is quite astonishing. I was overwhelmed by the different brands, stores, and configurations. I tried Costco's online Canadian site ("http://www.costco.ca"), but the prices were not very aggressive. The US site of Costco offers even cheaper alternatives, but not cheap enough to justify crossing the border for a package pickup and having possible duties tacked on.

Finally I decided on an enhanced Lenovo ThinkPad SL510.

Reading multiple reviews, it seemed to be a good value for money machine, and it was not flashy but was powerful. Perfect. I didn't care if I had no choice of designer colours, or if I wouldn't be able to play a decent video game on it.

Deciding where to buy the computer was another matter. Eventually I bought the computer from Lenovo directly, using a discount code I found while surfing. A great source for researching shoppers like me is Red Flag Deals.

At redflagdeals, I found that most folks bought their computers directly from Lenovo, and I also found many discount codes, including the special one for redflagdeals that I eventually used. Before making the purchase, I obsessed over whether I would eventually find the computer for a lower price. Would it be cheaper on CYBERMONDAY, November 30? Should I wait until Boxing Day? Now that it is Boxing Day, I have finally had the chance to find the answer to my burning question. On these three days, Black Friday (November 27), Cyber Monday, and Boxing Day, I tried all discount codes and found that it was the *same* price, no matter which code I used, or which day I purchased, so let's score one for the little obsessive researching mommy. I bought it on Black Friday, and that was the right decision. According to the Lenovo website today, Boxing Day sale prices are the year's lowest prices!

So you know what to expect if you order from Lenovo, here's a timeline of my purchase process.

I ordered my computer on November 27. It was ready for shipping in Shanghai on December 5 and departed December 7. It arrived at noon on December 8 in North York, Ontario. It arrived in Vancouver's port on December 10. It arrived on my doorstep on December 14. I was promised 11 business days, and that was pretty close to what I got. It crossed the country twice before arriving in my grubby hands.

The day of the promised arrival was fairly annoying. I stayed home most of the day waiting for the package, which would arrive any time between 9-7 pm. At 4:45 pm, I gave up on waiting and took a hot bath. As soon as I lowered myself into the water, the doorbell rang. I'm pretty sure the delivery guy was waiting outside until I got into the water before he rang the doorbell.

Before the computer arrived, I worried about where I would get a web browser. I would need a web browser to download a web browser! Setting up the pristine new computer was incredibly easy. It was already equipped with Netscape AND a 60 day trial of Microsoft Office 2007, as well as a trial of Norton. Well now, they've thought of everything.

The only thing I regret is the quality of the display. It seems a bit fuzzy and low res. My old computer had better resolution. Ten days later, I'm used to the fuzziness.

Guilt Free Hair Colouring: Part 2, Colora Henna Creme

First, I have to laugh at the name of this product. Creme? As in creme brulee? As in, French cream? There is nothing better to make something sound classier by making it French, n'est-ce pas? Also, this one claims to be a "hair color & conditioner". Wow.

The box claims that this has no ammonia and no peroxide. There is a picture of the henna producing plant on the cover. I wouldn't exactly call it all natural, though. Here is the ingredient list:

Water, Henna Extract, Hydroxyethylcellulose, Cocoamphoproprionate, Dowicil 200. May also contain solvent black 5, disperse blue 1, basic violet 14, basic yellow 15.

I would be more inclined to do a test for an allergic reaction with this "henna."

The instructions are much simpler. Shampoo and towel dry, apply the "creme", cover with a plastic cap for one hour or more, then rinse thoroughly. Simplicity itself. The whole process took about 1.5 hours. For the simplicity alone, I preferred this "henna." But when I had to henna my hair again, I chose the messy Light Mountain "Color the Gray!" option.

Here is why. The Colora did not smell and washed out easily, but a few days later I went swimming. It turned the inside of my white silicon cap light brown! I could not wash the colour off my cap, and months later, despite exposure to chlorine, my cap was never quite be the same white it used to be. With the chemical additives with multisyllabic names and the unknown "solvent black 5", I wasn't exactly sure WHAT was going into my hair. This product is a compromise between real henna and chemical commercial dyes. The box claims to be "coloring your hair with organic colors". I don't know how organic "basic violet 14" is.

It also did not seem to last quite as long as the Light Mountain henna. It washed out after maybe six weeks, and my grays become light enough to be noticeable again. This may have also been a result of my colour choice, mahogany, which is the fourth darkest shade. I could have chosen Chestnut, Brown, or Black for darker colour.

For my next move, I may try to find henna in Little India.

Guilt Free Hair Colouring: Part 1

It wasn't long ago that I said that I would never dye my hair. I would age gracefully. Naturally. Well, that was before The Whitening, also known as the day I noticed kinky long white hairs were popping at a rate too fast for my husband to pluck out of my head while I flossed my teeth.

The search was on for a green environmentally friendly non-toxic alternative to conventional hair dyes. A quick Google search turned up henna as a possible alternative. If I was going to do something as vain as hair colouring, I wasn't about to wash chemicals into the drain to achieve it.

Google's top site was Henna for Hair, which linked to www.hennapage.com. Here I learned about henna. To save you reading time, I will summarize.

Henna is derived from a plant with the latin name lawsonia inermis. Henna by itself is a red-orange dye. The range of colours available is made from mixing henna with other ingredients. One ingredient that can be added is indigo, derived from the plant indigofera tinctoria. This is the same dye that is used to make blue jeans blue.

Henna supposedly penetrates the hair shaft and does not simply coat the hair. You should be able to achieve a fairly permanent effect. My experience did not bear out this claim, as I will discuss below.

Not all henna is created equal. The www.hennaforhair.com site recommended that I buy body art quality henna and mix it myself. As a mother of small children, this option sounded like too much trouble. I did learn, however, that I would need to buy around 200g of henna to cover my medium length hair. Long hair would require 300g and short hair would need 100g. Locally, I could expect to find body art quality henna at the local India town. I just couldn't see myself doing this either. "Hello. Do you have any body art quality henna?" It was a fear of the unknown that led me to make a trip to the shopping mall instead.

A trip to the drug store to buy henna turned up... nothing. There were dozens of different kinds of permanent chemical hair dyes with all the big names, but absolutely no henna products, except some henna shampoo. I was dismayed to finally find henna at my local mall in a Health Store. You know, the kind that sells vitamin supplements, fasting plans in a box, and protein supplements for weight lifters in big plastic jars. You know. The kind of place that I would never set foot in under normal circumstances.

There were no hippies, muscle men, or frighteningly emaciated customers in the store the day I searched for henna. Bingo, there were three different kinds of henna mixes! Two were from the "Light Mountain" company of Twin Lakes, Wisconsin. One was called "Color the Gray!", complete with exclamation mark!, priced at $15 CAD. The other did not claim to "Color the Gray!" so I did not seriously consider it. The last remaining product was from the "Colora" company of Little Ferry, New Jersey. It was the "colora henna creme" all in small caps. In fact, everything on the cover of the box was in small caps. There was a reassuring picture of a plant too, plus the reassurance of "no ammonia" and "no peroxide." This was priced at around $10 CAD. Even more convenient, you can also buy the Colora product at www.well.ca, with free shipping. That online store also carries "Hennalucent" which I have not reviewed for this article.



First I gave the Light Mountain Natural Color the Gray! a whirl. I chose Dark Brown. According to the box, the ingredients are henna and indigo leaf powders, "only the pure botanicals listed above and nothing else." Excellent! Opening the box revealed two bags of powder and instructions with plastic gloves and plastic bag attached to it. The box had a strong pleasant perfume-like scent to it. This was NOT what the powder smelled like, when I opened the bags. I can only describe the scent as being like in a Chinese store, like sandalwood.

After reading the instructions, I was a little scared and a lot intimidated. I was working with a semi-permanent dye! I was going to do this alone! I prepared by putting on a full robe made of dark purple fleece and safety pinning a burgundy towel around my neck. I put vaseline on my ears, neck and all around the hairline as suggested in the instructions. I wasn't about to risk having my clothes or skin turn colour from my sloppiness. The entire operation would be done while crouched in my dry big jacuzzi tub.

What I did not do was a test strand. I am not allergic to anything of any significance and I do not have chemically treated hair. I doubted that anything would go wrong.

There are fairly detailed instructions, but here they are in a nutshell. There are two separate powders, labelled "STEP 1" and "STEP 2". You need to mix the powders with boiled distilled water (distilled being highlighted in bold) to the consistency of yogurt in non-metallic bowls and let them sit for a time to "cure." I used filtered tap water, but I felt that the risk of some unforeseen chemical reaction was unlikely with our great local water supply. I used a plastic spoon to mix in glass bowls. Also, to save time you can mix STEP 1 and STEP 2 in separate bowls, rather than doing them in sequence as you require them.

There are some ingredients you can add to the mixes:

Condition: 2T yogurt or 1 egg
Golden highlights: use half warm lemon juice or chamomile tea
Golden or copper highlights: 3T vinegar or lemon juice
Enrich brown or red: 1t ginger, allspice, nutmeg or paprika
Enhance brown: replace water with old black very warm coffee

You apply STEP 1 to your clean, towel dried hair in sections (using non-metallic hair clips), cover your hair with the provided plastic cap (which I secured with a wooden clothes pin), and leave it on for up to 15 minutes, checking every 5 minutes, applying "intermittent heat." My heat source was a hair dryer on warm setting. Rinse it out with water, then towel dry it. I read reviews of this product online and read a recommendation to fill the tub with water and immerse my whole head and body in the tub of water to help rinse it out. Afraid of getting dye on my skin, I first rinsed off with the shower spray attachment in the tub before filling the tub with water and lying down in the water.

Now, this whole process is INCREDIBLY MESSY. You've got this slop falling out of your hair in clumps as you keep applying more. There is no way to avoid getting this stuff on your wrists and your face, but I found that if I rinsed soon after slopping it on, it didn't leave much of a mark. A wetted corner of the towel around my neck to wipe off slopped bits worked quite well. The clumps fell everywhere, including all over the tub with some bits ending up on the rim of the tub, who knows how. These were easily rinsed off with some warm water later without staining the white tub surface. Also, you have to remember to rinse off your gloves after you've applied STEP 1 because you'll need them again in STEP 2. I ended up getting water down my plastic gloves (too short!), but my hands didn't stain at all since I rinsed after.

STEP 1 was the henna, I think. STEP 2 was probably the indigo, or at least it was in my case.

STEP 2 is pretty much the same as STEP 1. However, it "could take up to 3 or 4 hours to achieve the desired colour" for STEP 2. Yikes!!!

The whole process took me about 3 hours from start to finish, not including curing the powders, but it could have taken much longer had I not had to hurry off to pick up one of kids from school. I cut short STEP 2 just a wee bit. The rinsing took a considerably long time. I tried to wait until the water rinsed fairly cleear, but this meant filling and refilling the tub at least three times. It never did run absolutely clear, but the first shampoo post-dye would take out the rest of it.

You are asked to avoid washing your hair for at least 24 hours. The henna makes the hair smell like wet hay. It is not entirely unpleasant. This smell lingers for days. I did not see any colour transfer onto my pillow, but I did take the precaution of sleeping on a dark coloured towel unti I had the chance to wash my hair.

The package contained 197g of "100% PURE BOTANICAL HAIR COLOR", which was perfect for my shoulder length hair. There was probably enough for longer hair, if I was more careful about application and slopped less.

So, how did it turn out?

The white hairs appear lighter than the other hairs, but they appear like highlights. What I love about this colouring is that it lasts for around 3 months before the colour fades enough to notice the white hairs again. I have dark brown hair with natural red highlights, and less than 1% white hairs. I know that I had previously written that henna is supposedly permanent, but indigo is less so. Perhaps that explains why the colour does not last until the hairs fall out. The gradual fading means that I never have to touch up my roots. Now, I wash my hair almost daily because I exercise heavily, so the colour might last longer for you.

Despite the mess, I feel that the whole henna process was worth the trouble. Any mess was easily cleaned up by spraying down the bathtub and washing my bathrobe and towel. I also take comfort in knowing that henna is "good" for my hair, unlike commercial chemical dyes. Perhaps you could recruit a friend to do a henna night. That might make it easier. It was certainly challenging to slop on the henna without seeing myself in the mirror.

Next, in Part 2, we look at the Colora Henna Creme.

Planning a Trip to Disney World with Kids

Since I spent nearly as much time researching and booking my trip to Disney World in Orlando as the actual time spent there, I thought I should include a little write-up on the basics of my planning.

There are four theme parks in the World. I was clueless as to how to divide my time.

Here are the steps I took to plan my trip:

1. Decide when to visit. See this site, or check the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World (available at your local library).

2. Go to Touring Plans to see chart of which parks are recommended for which days. Usually, a park is not recommended on any Extra Magic Hours day as this means a more crowded park.

3. Decide on how many days to spend in each park. My recommendations for a week, for a family with young children (aged 5-7), is 2 days Hollywood Studios (HS), 2-3 days Magic Kingdom (MK), 1 day Epcot (EP), 1 day Animal Kingdom (AK). We napped every day except for Animal Kingdom visiting day. Choose your schedule based on the recommended best days to visit each park.

4. Reserve dining locations through http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/restaurants/. The most coveted dining locations are: Cinderella's Royal Table (MK), Chef Mickey's (MK), Le Cellier (EP), Sci Fi Dine In Theatre (HS), Coral Reef (EP), and Ohana (Polynesian). I recommend also the Crystal Palace. I also recommend Tusker (AK), dining between 1-2 pm for automatic reservations at the Finding Nemo Musical. A very useful resource is Mouse Savers, which shows you how far in advance you need to book for each restaurant, which of course reflects a given restaurant's popularity. You should also book for the Fantasmic show dinner packages in Hollywood Studios to avoid lining up ultra early to get decent seats. The dinner package allows you to sit in a reserved section. Three restaurants have limited reservations for the package. You do not automatically get Fantasmic reservations by booking at those restaurants.

5. Choosing the rides: Measure your kids' heights in inches. This will help you to decide which rides to go on, since some have height restrictions. Check the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World for a list of rides with comments on fear factor if you have children. You can cross reference this with the list of favourite rides at this website.

6. Find out which rides are currently not in operation. I didn't do this, so I don't have the link for it, but I was fairly annoyed to find out that the Tomorrowland Transit Authority was shut down for the duration of our visit.

7. I bought the RideMax software to schedule which ride at what time to save us time lining up. You input the rides you want to do, along with any time parameters you require (nap times, lunches, dinners). The software optimizes your schedule to minimize your time walking and/or lining up. It also manages to fit in any shows or parades you need to catch. Less brainwork for my $18.95. http://www.ridemax.com/ You may not need this software as much if you are visiting during a non-peak time of year, but I still found it useful to save me time in planning the order to visit rides. You can fiddle with this software, scheduling in naps and breaks, or using the natural breaks the software schedules in for you.

I haven't discussed where to stay. There is much available on the web for this research, multiple forums discussing recommended resorts, etc., including this one. Disney classifies resorts as being Deluxe, Moderate, or "Value". I had to disagree with the recommendation on the yourfirstvisit website to avoid Moderate Resorts. I found the idea of staying at a Value Resort (Pop Century) then switching to a Deluxe Resort during the same trip to save money to be repugnant as I would not want to unpack/pack twice in one trip. I was willing to pay more for the nicer accommodations and amenities of a Moderate Resort, since I love luxurious hotels. Also, the Unofficial Guide to WDW has quite comprehensive information about each resort. Some websites even recommend which rooms are preferable in each resort through their forums.

Regarding saving money, I bought a package from a WDW certified travel agent which included the Disney Dining Plan, Magic Your Way tickets, and accommodations. The hotel was only $97 and the Dining Plan was around $40 a day for adults and $11 for children. In retrospect, I felt that the Dining Plan encouraged overeating. There is no way I would normally have three desserts in a day, which is what we ate: one snack (usually dessert), and one dessert at lunch and one at dinner. These were all included in the plan. For breakfasts we drank milk purchased from the store at the resort and brought along Nutrigrain bars and ate these while waiting for the bus. That way we were able to arrive early every morning for the opening of each park.

Have fun planning your trip!

Mixing Mel's Mix Using the Power of One

First step: line the bed with weed blocker. The black plastic cloth came in a roll of 3x25 feet. Since my bed is 12 feet long, I simply folded the cloth back on itself and cut it in half with a pair of scissors. This was more difficult than it sounds because, my luck, it was windy.

I decided to put the cloth in so it would go up the sides, leaving a 2-3 inch overlap in the middle. I used masking tape to stick the cloth to the tops of the sides so it wouldn't move, then I placed newspapers two layers thick on the bottom of the bed, directly on top of the existing grass and weeds. The wind kept blowing the newspapers around, but with one quick spray of the garden hose, the newspapers stuck to the bottom weed cloth like paper mache. Yeah!

Next, I put a tarp over one of the ends of the bed so that the sides of the tarp were elevated like a rim.

Then I did some mental calculations and came up with this plan. I would mix each component in 55L amounts. The number 55 was simply half the 110L bag of vermiculite. So for for the first batch:

1. Dump in half bag of vermiculite, 55L;

2. One bag of mushroom manure, 25L;

3. One bag of Sea Soil, 32L; and

4. 1/2 bag of 3.8 cubic feet (ft3) Peat Moss, 1.9 ft3 (expands to approximately double volume).

This was about 1/8 of the total volume of the bed. This was still a large volume of material to be mixing all at once. It was truly back breaking labour. I couldn't even lift up the huge block of Peat Moss. I had to roll it end over end to get it anywhere near the bed. Clunk. Clunk. Plop. Then, when I got it to the edge of the bed, I couldn't lift it up to put it inside the bed. Simply too heavy. The peat moss was so compact that it was hard to any quantity out from it. I tried attacking it with my fingers in gardening gloves, and that worked to some extent. Later I used a spade to break it up and scoop it out. Even when I had managed to get it out of the bag, the peat moss was clumpy. I had to break up the clumps with my fingers.

I tried lifting one side of the tarp to mix it, as Mel suggests. Mel also suggests doing it with a friend. That didn't happen. I was by myself and didn't want to wait for my husband to help. I wanted to get it done immediately. The tarp was incredibly heavy. I sweated and sweated. It was pouring down my face, and it was fairly cold outside, 15C.

I also did this while wearing an N95 dust mask. The vermiculite and peat moss are dusty, and the vermiculite may possibly be harmful to inhale. The mask made it worse, as did wearing my glasses, which fogged up from all the action.

Raking the mound did not work. Neither did scooping it up in spades and turning it over. Later I refined my technique and mixed it this way:

1. Add 1/4 bag vermiculite, 27.5 L;

2. 1/2 bag mushroom manure, 12.5 L;

3. 1/2 bag Sea Soil, 16.25 L;

4. 1/8 bag Peat Moss;

5. Repeat.

This way, there was more layering of ingredients and I could mix it more easily. Then I started mixing it with my hands, and gave up on the tarp rolling method. After I finished mixing, I simply moved the tarp to the other side of the bed and dumped it out.

It took me three hours in all to create "Mel's Mix." Nice stuff it is. I enjoyed moving my fingers through the mix. It was so loose and airy, not like ordinary soil. After filling the bed, I removed the masking tape.

My calculations were a bit off. The mix doesn't come up to the 12 inch wall edges. It's short by about an inch. That's okay, since SFG only requires 6 inches of depth most of the time.

I created the square foot grid by buying round maple dowels from Kerrisdale Lumber for 81 cents for a 1/8 inch dowel four feet in length. The 1/4 inch dowel was 1.29 each. The dowels were various lengths, but the shortest was at least 4 feet long. I marked off 12 inch lengths on all 20 dowels and used them as a measuring guide. I cut all width dowels to fit just inside the walls of the bed, using a rose clipper. I tied the dowels together with twist ties. Unfortunately, a few of the dowels were not straight, so I have some wonky squares in the bunch. This whole process took me 1.5 hours! I did not cut the lengthwise dowels, but let them overlap. I made three grids of 4x4.

Finally, I planned out the garden, basing the location of plants according to how much shade they needed. I labelled coloured popsicle sticks with permanent marker: red for beets, orange for carrots, green for peas, blue for spinach, yellow for celery, purple for mizuno. I accidentally planted a carrot square next to another. This violates SFG guru Mel's rule against putting two squares of the same thing next to each other.

Now to wait for something to come up!

Killing Flying Insects--the Natural Way

It was my six year old who noticed the canteloupe sized wasp nest under the patio cover. We paid a man with a respirator mask and goggles $70 to soak the nest in a pesticide that foamed and dripped menacingly over our walkway to the garage. He was paid to knock the nest down but said that he would knock it down "if he was in the area" in four or five days. Nice. He proclaimed the wasps were actually hornets.

Now we have discovered more wasp/hornet/jellow jacket thingies flying into a hole over our door to the garage. Every time we open the door we risk letting in some of the flying hazards. So now to find out where to buy an organic thingie killer.

First searches turned up the EcoSmart Wasp and Hornet Killer, which is not available in Canada. I found this out through calling EcoSmart headquarters. Darn. It contains things like mint oils in some type of combination that is deadly to little critters but not kids and pets. Canadian Tire sells the Green Earth Homecare Flying and Crawling Insect Killer, a brand originating in Canada. It is a "botanical insecticide", but I had difficulty finding out exactly what is in it since it was not listed on the product's listing:

http://www.canadiantire.ca/browse/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524443309414&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=282574489838394&bmUID=1246394677712

Here is Green Earth's website: http://www.greenearth.ca/ Sure Gro is the parent company, located in Eastern Canada. They list telephone help at 1-800-268-2806. There is no "Flying and Crawling" insect killer in their current product list. Puzzling. So, has it been phased out of their product line? The Bio-Mist Insect Killer, available in concentrate and non-concentrate forms, lists pyrethrin as its main ingredient. Pyrethrins are derived from Chrysanthemum. A description of pyrethrin is listed here: http://www.greenearth.ca/features/pyrethrins_e.php

"Pyrethrins are powerful contact insecticide causing a rapid paralysis or "knockdown" of the treated insects. This insecticide also has stomach-poison and fumigant action. Pyrethrins are fast acting and effective on a wide range of insects; damage from insects usually stops within minutes of application. Pyrethrins have an acute oral LD50 of 200 mg/kg. Formulated products have low mammalian toxicity. They are not persistent but break down rapidly in sunlight - so there are no residue problems. This permits use on edible crops up to the day before harvest."

These insecticides are usually designed for spraying directly on or into nests. The entrance into our home and the nest is extremely difficult to access as it is located behind the header of the door frame.

Here's a web resource enumerating other alternatives to mainstream pesticides:

http://www.pesticidefreebc.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=64&Itemid=120

Update. I bought the Green Earth Flying & Crawling Insect Killer from Canadian Tire for $7, I think it was. That night we removed the packing tape that has been covering the crack on the inside of our house which is a passage to the wasp nest. As my husband went downstairs looking for something, I went downstairs as well to look for a ladder. I heard my visiting brother screaming and running around. I ran upstairs. He was being attacked by a wasp. It flew directly at him for a focussed attack. We take out the trusty dustbuster and vacuum it up. I went up calmly to close the tape, and then another one escaped. I didn't see where it flew. Next thing I knew, I felt pain on my scalp as I was stung on the top of my head, where my hair is parted from a hair clip. I started using my hands to frantically brush out my hair. Now my husband is up, and he and my brother look for the wasp, and they find the still alive wasp on the ground. They squish it.

We re-tape the crack and give up for the night. We also tested the Insect Killer and found that when we attached a straw to it, the killer just dripped out the end of the straw.

Later that night, I take the live wasp out of the dustbuster and put it in a clear plastic bag. I spray the Insect Killer inside. The wasp goes into convulsions but does not die... for a long time.

Next day we called the exterminator. $45 to have him pump our house full of foam and pesticide powder. So much for being green. Over the next few days, my scalp felt positively inflated, and the tension in my scalp was just amazing. I probably looked like Gumby. Die, wasps, die.

Building the Square Foot Garden

Around 10:15 am, my long awaited Scenery Solutions Frame-it-all 8x8x12 Raised Bed Garden Kit from Costco finally arrived. It came in four 4 foot long boxes. The hardest part of this job is screwing the joints to the planks and levelling the ground. The handy video I watched at the Scenery Solutions website made it seem so easy.

http://www.frameitall.com/raised-bed-gardens.html

Well now, I take a look at the video again. Ha. They start the video with the joint pre-screwed onto the planks! Cheaters! Liars! For the life of me, I can't figure out why they didn't pre-drill the holes in the planks. Some of my planks are misaligned by 1-2 mm. I hope I don't see a lot of dirt creeping through the imperfections.

Tiny paper labels on the planks state that the material contains "less than 1% formaldehyde." Eeek. Didn't even know it had any formaldehyde at all. Maybe I should let it off gas a bit before I fill it with soil. These babies were backordered, which explains the big wait for the kit, so they would likely be fresh off the factory presses.

The planks are darker than I expected, and clearly look plastic, despite the faux wood texturing. They are difficult to drill through. I tried handscrewing to start the drilling before switching to my power drill, but eventually found that I needed to stand over the joint, laying it on the ground, and use brute force downward into the screw to make the drilling faster.

I laid the first 5.5 inch layer of planks on the ground to see whether I need to level the ground. It looks not too bad, but I was just sort of hoping that the ground would be level and I wouldn't have to do anything, because I didn't get any tools to help me with levelling.

Oh my... I have just received delivery of my soil/vermiculite/peat moss order and the vermiculite is... fine grade. I cringed as I sent the fine vermiculite bags back, knowing that this means another delay in getting my garden ready. The garden centre will be speaking to their supplier on Monday to special order the coarse or medium grade vermiculite for me. Or at least that's what they said.

So back to sourcing vermiculite again. Endless Google searches, and now finally I turn to Metacrawler. Still nothing. Looking at a website about Samaurai Gerberas leads me to a recipe mix including coarse vermiculite. I call to ask where they get their coarse vermiculite. The kind lady points me to Sumas Grow Media in Chilliwack and West Creek Farms in Langley. I call Langley and their office is already closed at 4:30 pm on Friday.

Monday now. Coarse vermiculite is not available here, as far as I can tell. West Creek Farms has only medium and fine grade. David Hunter has advised that they only have medium and fine. I am going with the medium, at $30 a bag. West Creek Farms sells the medium for $20 a bag but they are located in Fort Langley and I am not prepared to drive to save $40 for 4 bags, or to pick them up in Burnaby. David Hunter will receive my special order on Friday and will deliver them after. Sigh. Another week to wait before I can put in the soil.

Square Foot Gardening: Vermiculite Sourcing

I'm waiting to get my raised bed kit from Costco. I ordered it on May 2, and it is due to arrive on June 26. Not quite the 7-10 days I was originally promised by Costco... I missed most of the early growing season!

Read about Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening (SFG) method. More garden for less work. Anything requiring less work sounds great to me! Mel advocates a mix of 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 compost, and 1/3 coarse vermiculite. Well, easier said than done... The peat moss is easy enough to find, as is the 5 different kinds of compost. The problem is the holticultural grade vermiculite.

Many discussion groups interested in vermiculite seemed to be marijuana hydroponic growers! They recommend buying vermiculite by mail order through Worm's Way, http://www.wormsway.com/detail.asp?sku=VER944. It's a very reasonable $25 US there for 4 cubic feet. It's reputedly easier to get vermiculite in Canada.

Through the Square Foot Gardening group at Facebook I discovered that Sun Gro makes vermiculite. Sunshine Strong-Lite Horticultural Coarse Vermiculite. The Sun Gro website directed me to a few locations near me: Prickly Pear in Richmond was one. They sell 8L bags for $3.99. Home Depot sells a vermiculite (but not coarse), 9L for $6.99.

So I did my calculations. I will be building an 4x12 box with a 12 inch depth. That requires 48 cubic feet of Mel's Mix. One third of that would be 16 cubic feet, or 453L. Hmmm... that means I'll need to buy 56.6 bags of 8L vermiculite for a total of $226.50 plus tax. So, I put in a telephone call to Sun Gro headquarters in Bellevue, WA. They referred me to Customer Service at 1-888-797-7328 who referred me to local Sun Gro representative for BC, Fred Wickens. He was very kind and helpful. He noted that vermiculite used to be mixed into their potting soils but that is no longer done, and that it is not cost effective to ship vermiculite from the East Coast to sell here. The vermiculite available locally is shipped from South Africa. So much for buying local...

He referred me to Eddi's Wholesale Garden Supplies in Surrey, BC. They sell 110L bags but they would not sell to me as I am not a retailer. So back to the local garden centres. Mr. Wickens had mentioned Gardenworks, which sells the 110L bags for $40. Jackpot! 110L? Now we're talking! Unfortunately, they sold out over the weekend. Hearing that got me into a frantic state of mind, so I tried to order my things over the phone for delivery to get my claws on the next shipment. Well, the vermiculite they were expecting that day showed up, but only two bags. I need four. Also, it was medium grade. I find it strange that the supplier would only ship two bags. I would have to wait until perhaps Thursday for the last two bags I needed.

So I was back to calling around for vermiculite sources. Art's Nursery only has the 10L Dutch Treat bags for $5, despite being "one of Greater Vancouver's largest retail and wholesale garden centres." I did discover, however, that they offer Sea Soil for $65 a "tractor scoop", which is "60-70% of 1 yard." After some calculations, I figured out that I need one tractor scoop. The problem is that delivery would cost $100. If I was willing to truck in the soil myself, this was definitely the place to go for Sea Soil. http://www.artsnursery.com/bulk.asp

For Sea Soil, another option would be to have "Got Dirt Ltd." deliver the dirt to me directly. They did not have peat moss or vermiculite, and I would still have to pay the high delivery charge (less than $100 but more than $50, can't remember). I would rather get the one stop shopping thing done to save on delivery charges. I just couldn't picture myself lugging bag after bag of soil from the store to my car, and from my car to the house.

Ward Teulon of City Farmer also offered to supply me the soil, for $385 plus taxes, which includes laying down newspapers and putting the Sea Soil in the box and amending it with organic fertilizers. Alas, it would not be Mel's Mix. He suggested 25 bags of Sea Soil, which was far less than I calculated for total volume required for the bed.

By searching online, I found a supplier in Vernon, BC, Briteland Distributors, who had the 110L bags along with an interesting assortment of supplies ranging from organic gardening supplies to janitorial and food service indudstries, among others. Shipping costs to Vancouver would be prohibitive, as the supplier would have to find a freight company to ship. Well, if you live near Vernon, this might be a great place to buy your supplies. They even have bat guano!http://www.briteland.com/wecs.php?usetemplate=formatted_organics

David Hunter Garden Centre was mentioned on the Sun Gro site, so I tried there. Bingo. The 110L bags are in stock in the Surrey store, for only $27! Yeah! Other items were also cheaper than GardenWorks, all except Sea Soil. How puzzling.

Here is what I'm buying:

4 x 110L medium grade vermiculite @ $27
2 x 3.8ft3 peat moss (which expands to 16 ft3)
8 x 25L mushroom manure (horse poo) @$3
13 x 32L organic sea soil @ $8
Landscape cloth, $5 for 3x25 feet.
Delivery $25

TOTAL COST: $275 plus tax.

The large bags of vermiculite will be sent up from the Surrey store since the Arbutus store has none.

For comparison, a similar purchase at GardenWorks (Mandeville):

4 x 110L medium grade vermiculite @ $40
2 x 3.8ft3 peat moss (which expands to 16 ft3) @ $17
7 x 30L mushroom manure (horse poo) @$5.50
13 x 32L organic sea soil @ $7
Landscape cloth, $13 for 3x50 feet.
Delivery $70

TOTAL: $409.50 (but 25 feet more landscape cloth and 10L more mushroom manure) plus tax.


Miles at the Arbutus store of David Hunter spent lots of time laughing at me on the telephone when I asked him for his opinion on what composts to buy. He ended up critiquing the whole venture. He had heard of SFG, but thought I would be better off simply digging up the soil in the ground and filling it with mostly mushroom manure, as my mix was not cost effective. When I said that the SFG was supposedly foolproof, he said it was more simply "foolish." Ha ha. True that spending $275 for everything delivered (plus taxes) is fairly exorbitant for a vegetable garden. It would take me forever to recoup the costs if this was a commercial venture. He didn't understand the need for vermiculite at all. So while I am worried, I am going to go on blind faith that the guru of SFG knows what he's doing. I appreciate that Miles had good intentions, and I am appreciative. Heck, I've spent more than $275 on tickets to Beauty and the Beast for the whole family, so I'm not terribly worried. He also suggested I scrap the worm castings as being too expensive ($23 for 20L). This was the piece of advice I did listen to. I was just trying to follow the requirement of five different kinds of compost that Mel prescribes.

I wish my own compost was ready. I've been composting since 1997, but the oldest compost in my new home is about 3 years old and only a small amount seems to be ready. I already used it when I planted some mini pumpkins in the existing garden bed.

Miles also suggested that I use a rototiller to mix everything together. When I mentioned the SFG idea of putting the soils on a tarp and mixing by lifting up the corners, he laughed again. He suggested physiotherapy might be in order after I'm done!

I hope it doesn't matter much that I have medium, and not coarse vermiculite. A quick look at others asking the same question on other gardening forums shows that medium vermiculite is okay, but will break down sooner.

Delivery of the soil is now timed for delivery of the garden bed kit. Dreading the back breaking work of putting it all together.

Update:  March 22, 2012.  I called David Hunter to ask about vermiculite.  I am concerned that the medium vermiculite has now broken into smaller pieces.  It is now $35 for 110L of the coarse vermiculite.  They now have a Broadway location again, at 2560 West Broadway between Larch and Trafalgar.

Update March 13, 2013.  David Hunter (604-733-1534) has medium vermiculite, 100L for $50!!!  Wow, in the course of four years, the price has doubled.

Creating an Urban Garden

With the spectre of the swine flu lurking, I thought it was high time to grow our own vegetables. The kids would love seeing the food growing, learn about food production, and I could avoid paying $5 for five organic blueberries. I was going to follow Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening methodology, a way of increasing yield for a small space that would require minimal garden maintenance. Last November I received a quote from Ward Teulon of City Farm Boy for a raised garden bed, 6 inches deep, made of treated red cedar, 4 feet by 8 feet, for $685 plus taxes. This would include everything. I wouldn't have to lift a finger. The bed could be built from pine (much cheaper) which would last around 3-4 years, or oiled cedar, which would last around 10 years.

I spoke to a very helpful person at City Farmer http://www.cityfarmer.org/ and found out that I had missed all the seminars on urban gardening in the month of March. She tipped me off that seeds are sold out everywhere in Vancouver. Oh boy. I'm part of another trend. She directed me to two online seed order companies. She also told me that I could find blueberry bushes at David Hunter Garden Centres. In a frenzy, I snuck off to David Hunter while my daughter was in her drama class and bought four blueberry bushes and a kiwi plant. I didn't even have a garden yet. I figured I could just plant them in my rosebush beds. When I got home, I discovered that the kiwi plant was female and needed a male to produce fruit. Doh! I called David Hunter and put a male kiwi plant on hold for pickup later.

I researched how to build my own raised bed, and found that they are easy to build. Just cut up lengths of lumber, put together with deck screws, put in landscaping cloth to stop weeds, and load it up with soil! It wouldn't cost much, maybe $42 US per 4x4 box: http://allaboutsquarefootgardening.com/?p=9 I found great instructions at http://www.sunset.com/garden/perfect-raised-bed-00400000039550/ for a 4x8 box for $187 US. I still could not envision myself cutting the wood and loading it into my car at Home Depot. I decided to go the easy way and pay Ward to set up the thing for me. I sent off my cheque for a $300 deposit, and he picked it up the same day.

Crazy impulsive person that I am, on the same day I also ordered $27 worth of seeds from http://www.westcoastseeds.com/. Beets, celery, carrots, cherry tomatoes, spinach...

While checking my emails, I got a spam from Costco.ca directing me to their summer savings event. There, to my horror, I discovered that Costco carries an 8x8 raised garden bed kit , made with composite wood (60% recycled plastic, 40% wood flour), from Scenery Solutions for $360, delivered. It has a flexible configuration, with 4 foot sections and hinges that can be bent in any direction, so it seemed. This way I could get a 4x12 bed with a 12 inch depth. I called Ward immediately to call off my order with him. I ordered the Costco version on a Saturday night. By Monday, the item was no longer available at Costco. Maybe I bought the last one? I could find very little written about the Scenery Solutions bed, although I spent quite some time searching for reviews.

I picked up the boy kiwi from David Hunter, and also grabbed five strawberry plants at $3.50 each. I did some further research on kiwis only to find out that they really need an arbour built above them for the vines to climb up, and the kiwis would hang from the overhead beams. It would also take 3-4 years for fruit to be produced. Sigh. Also, since I did not buy hardy kiwis, the plants would need to be protected every winter should the temperature drop below 0F. This was more trouble than I had bargained for.

I am now waiting for the delivery of the package from Costco and the seeds. In the meantime, I need to look into how to get 48 cubic feet of mix into my backyard. The mix suggested by Square Foot Gardening is 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 compost, and 1/3 peat moss. I need to figure out where to buy these amounts in Vancouver.